Chapter 5 - What Tessa’s Mother Had Hidden
Tessa could not look away from the photograph.
Salvatore held her carefully.
Anna stood beside him.
On the hospital bracelet around Tessa’s tiny wrist was a surname.
MORETTI.
“No.”
Matteo stared at it.
“That doesn’t prove—”
“Don’t.”
Tessa backed away.
“Don’t make this better before we know what it is.”
She opened Anna’s letter.
My dearest Tessa,
If you are reading this, then the past finally found you.
I lied about your father.
I lied because truth was more dangerous than abandonment.
Salvatore Moretti believed you were his daughter.
He was wrong.
Tessa stopped.
Matteo leaned forward.
She continued.
The night Sofia and I disappeared, we carried evidence that could destroy men far more powerful than Salvatore. Sofia had discovered that somebody inside the Moretti organization was using Salvatore’s docks for trafficking without his knowledge.
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
The letter continued.
Salvatore found out. He wanted the evidence destroyed because exposing it would destroy the family. Sofia refused.
So did I.
Tessa turned the page.
One line remained.
Your father was the man who helped us escape.
His name was—
The bottom had been cut away.
Tessa laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Matteo examined the cut.
“Recent.”
“Someone opened the letter and removed his name.”
“Which means he matters.”
Tessa stared at the newborn photograph.
“Why would Salvatore think I was his?”
“Maybe your mother wanted him to.”
“Or maybe they had an affair.”
Matteo said nothing.
That possibility made them both uncomfortable for different reasons.
If Salvatore was Tessa’s biological father, she and Matteo were siblings.
But Anna’s letter explicitly denied it.
Still, someone had wanted Salvatore to believe otherwise.
Why?
Frank entered.
“We found Mercer.”
“Where?”
“Pier Nineteen.”
Matteo’s expression hardened.
Pier Nineteen was where the original delayed shipment had been discussed at Bellaforte.
Coincidence had officially disappeared.
At the pier, they found David’s car abandoned.
Inside was the missing Dante volume.
Tessa opened it.
A rectangular cavity had been carved through hundreds of pages.
Empty.
“The ledger was here,” she whispered.
Matteo searched the vehicle.
In the glove compartment, he found a flash drive.
Back at the safe house, Frank connected it to an isolated computer.
There was one video.
Anna appeared on-screen.
Alive.
Healthy.
Twenty years younger.
“If you’re seeing this,” she said, “then Salvatore found us.”
Another woman entered the frame.
Sofia Moretti.
Matteo stopped breathing.
Sofia looked directly into the camera.
“Matteo, if you’re old enough to understand this, listen carefully. Dad isn’t the monster you think he is.”
Matteo’s eyes glistened.
“He’s worse in some ways,” Sofia continued. “But the trafficking isn’t his. Someone has been using our family as cover.”
She lifted a ledger.
“The name at the center of everything is—”
The video glitched.
The image disappeared.
Tessa cursed.
Then another file appeared automatically.
A map.
Pier Nineteen.
A red marker indicated Warehouse 6.
Frank looked at Matteo.
“Trap.”
“Yes.”
Tessa stood.
“Then whoever set it expects us.”
Matteo looked at her.
“You’re not coming.”
She held up Anna’s letter.
“They murdered my mother’s life before cancer murdered her body. I’m coming.”
At Warehouse 6, they found no people.
Only a chair.
A projector.
And a tape recorder.
Matteo pressed PLAY.
Salvatore’s voice filled the warehouse.
“Hello, son.”
Matteo froze.
“If Tessa Bell is standing beside you, then Anna failed to keep her away from us.”
Tessa stepped closer.
“You want to know who her father was.”
A metallic sound came from behind them.
The warehouse doors slammed shut.
May you like
The recording continued.
“Then first you need to know who killed your sister.”
